Why We Read Fiction_ Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine [69]
Humbert's quick, casual, and, as it turns out on the second reading, groundless attributions of mental states to strangers are ubiquitous. On a different occasion, he mentions in passing that during his and Lolita's journey across the United States they are regularly accosted by "inquisitive parents," who, "in order to pump Lo about [him], would suggest her going to a movie with their children" (164). If we append this sentence with the simplest of the agent-specifying source tags, such as, "Humbert thinks that. . .," we would easily recognize this piece of mind-reading for what it is—plain paranoia and inability to imagine a state of mind not centered on Humbert's august persona and his enviable possession of a nymphet. The idea that the only reason one parent after another would invite a girl clearly starved for the company of her peers to go to a movie with his or her own child is to "pump" her about her father is ridiculous once we restore the missing source tag. We do not, however, realize that the tag is missing when we first read the book and thus unwittingly acquiesce to the Humbertian vision of the world.
And in that world, the snooping parents are followed by sexually frustrated policemen. Stopped for speeding in a small town, Humbert notices that the patrolmen peer at Lolita and him with "malevolent curiosity."
However, once Lolita smiles at them "sweetly," the officers turn "kind"
(171) and let them go, apparently gratified by the little sexpot's homage to their uniformed masculinity. Or so Humbert makes us imagine, for unless we consciously supply the missing source tag, "Humbert thinks that . . ," we indeed believe there is something "malevolent" and darkly intrusive in the patrolmen's rather ordinary act of reconnaissance.
In fact, no male can come in contact, however fleeting, with Lolita's "special languorous glow" without falling under her nymphetic spell. Humbert easily penetrates the minds of various "garage fellows, hotel pages, vacationists, goons in luxurious cars, [and] maroon morons near blue pools" and informs us matter-of-factly that they were all thrown into "fits of concupiscence" (159) at the mere sight of the sexy girlie. Losing track of the source tag pointing back to Humbert, we actually buy this mass attribution of mental states.
And we have already swallowed Humbert's confident prediction that two teenage boys who happen to share a pool with Lolita for a couple of minutes one afternoon will be aroused by the mere thought of "the quicksilver in the baby folds of her stomach .. . in recurrent dreams for months to come" (162). Not only does Humbert know what strangers he meets are thinking now, but he also knows what they will be dreaming about for months to come! Their dreams will naturally resemble his own, testifying once again to Lolita's irresistible, bewitching sexuality.
(c) How Do We Know When Humbert Is Reliable?
Like Richardson's Clarissa, Nabokov's Lolita contains episodes that imply that the narrator might have crossed over to that near-schizophrenic realm where self-awareness breaks down. For instance, when Lolita finally escapes Humbert, he spends some time in what he calls a "Quebec sanatorium" (a mental institution of some kind), where he composes a poem, featuring the following lines:
Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze? Why are you hiding, darling? (I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze, I cannot get out said the starling). (255)
Humbert's sentiments on the occasion are eerily reminiscent of those of
11: Nabokov's Lolita
Lovelace, who, when Clarissa has fled him for good, apostrophizes, "Oh return, return, my soul's fondledom, return to thy adoring Lovelace!" (1023)—a stalker and rapist apparently unaware of the fact that the overpowering vision of himself as a romantic and suffering lover